Innovation Day

As a nonprofit research organization, CNA is uniquely positioned to provide the government with unbiased, objective, and data-driven analysis of costs, benefits, risks, and rewards in considering digital twins. Leveraging our expertise in aviation, emerging technology, and machine learning, we analyzed where digital twins could provide the government with opportunities for process improvements and long-term cost savings, while avoiding operational and cybersecurity risk.

First Responder Awareness Monitoring during Emergencies (FRAME™) and Safe Warnings for Intersections Forecasting Tool (SWIFT™) leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) on Internet of Things (IoT) data to address government challenges of responding to emergencies and reducing traffic deaths. We leveraged CNA experience in AI/ML pipeline development, IoT data processing, public safety, and emergency management to improve public safety decision-making capabilities.

CNA helps government and industry partners prepare for the future of autonomous systems. We have capabilities in prototyping, validation, and concept feasibility. Our team provides multidisciplinary expertise in various emerging technologies: uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), UAS traffic management (UTM), extensible traffic management (xTM), urban air mobility (UAM), advanced air mobility (AAM), and port security and public safety. The projects covered are: UAS Cooperative Airspace Traffic Simulation (UCATS™), Improving UAS Cybersecurity Posture, CNA-RIIS UAS Indoor Solution for Emergency Response (CRUISER™), Autonomous Systems (UxS) for Port Security and Emergency Response.

In 2023, CNA partnered with the nonprofit First H.E.L.P. to analyze the data it has amassed on public safety personnel deaths by suicide. First H.E.L.P.'s efforts represent a notable stride toward gathering reliable data on this issue. CNA published the first examination of a systematic, national, and comprehensive effort to collect data on the extent of public safety deaths by suicide.

This analytic effort focused on a network analysis and associated ecosystem map of climate change resilience actions in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA). CNA engaged with NOLA's five climate action priority areas: economy, waste, energy, transportation, and adaptation and nature-based solutions. Through the lens of a network analysis and an ecosystem model, CNA identified the relationships between the ecosystem orchestrator and the various builders. This analysis can support the NOLA Office of Resilience to use a more informed approach in studying NOLA's climate goals.

Previous models of cyber combat were not suited to exploring impact, capacity, and timing. Cyber kill chains describe the high-level progression of cyber- intrusions in limited detail, while systems-level efforts only assess specific networks against specific threats. CNA's Cyber Combat Model explores the middle ground, helping cyber commanders understand how to win.

CNA characterized the nature and scope of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities by the People's Republic of China (PRC), the set of approaches that nations have available to them to address and counter IUU fishing, the degree to which these approaches are aligned to the nature of the PRC's activities, and the degree to which US special operations forces might be able to contribute to the application of those tools.

CNA examined Taiwan's lessons learned from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Taiwan government and military have enacted multifaceted reform with the goal of turning the Taiwan military into a credible deterrent and warfighting force. While some reform debates predate the Russia- Ukraine war, Taiwan government officials have taken lessons from Ukraine to guide restructuring of Taiwan's military forces.

Morse Code is CNA's secure, private large language model (LLM). By enhancing the speed and quality of our analysis, Morse Code promotes more informed decision-making for a wide range of governmental challenges. This strategic initiative upholds the highest standards of data privacy and security, providing a scalable solution tailored specifically to the government's unique needs.

CNA innovated on the traditional Navy shipbuilding plan document. CNA developed a public, online tool for exploring the Navy's 30-year plan to help generate informed public discussion about its strengths and weaknesses. While the implications of modifications to the plan have traditionally been difficult to understand, an online interactive tool can make these "what-if" questions easier to explore.

The Hunt™ series provides Marine Corps Information and Navy information warfare training in the form of an in-the-box board game. Every Marine, Sailor, and mariner has a role in winning the hider-finder battle, ensuring their survivability and continued lethality. EAB Hunt™, ARG Hunt™, and CLF Hunt™ help increase the knowledge of players to win the hider-finder battle.

CNA's wargaming team, in partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts, developed a two-day learning workshop and tabletop game on illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The game, "At Any Cost," takes an innovative approach that places players inside the decision spaces of different actors-including illegal fishers. Understanding motivations empowers players to find realistic solutions.

CNA participated in the first phase of a groundbreaking programming competition, the DARPA Triage Challenge (DTC). DARPA launched the DTC for the purpose of developing an innovative approach to assist medical responders in rapidly and accurately triaging casualties. Triage, a standard medical practice of allocating treatment to patients based on resources to maximize survivability, has unique challenges and limitations when responding to mass casualty incidents in austere settings.

Large language models (LLMs) have the potential to answer complex questions or "queries" about lengthy documents in seconds. This CNA- funded project sought to determine whether the ChatGPT 4.0 LLM can answer a complex policy-based query as well as or better than a CNA analyst and whether users can quickly adjust the parameters of LLM prompts to provide similar results.

This project assesses the feasibility of integrating AI models into CNA's geospatial and GIS processes, studies best practices for prompting and interacting with AI models, and explores future directions by creating proof- of-concept geospatial products.

This project is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of combining two evidence-based techniques for increasing resilience to mis-, dis-, and mal-information (MDM): inoculation and media literacy. CNA developed a longitudinal experimental research design with nine experimental conditions to assess how these interventions impact individuals' belief in the accuracy of MDM and their interest in sharing MDM on social media.

For over 80 years, CNA has fostered a culture of innovation and forward- thinking creativity at all levels of the organization. Beyond delivering thought leadership and innovative solutions to our everyday work supporting clients and sponsors, we continuously invest in independent research projects that explore new tools and approaches for addressing emerging challenges. CNA's Innovation Incubator (CNAi²) houses some of our innovative public- facing work.